Peter J. GilbertUniversity of the Highlands and Islands | UHI · Environmental Research Institute (ERI)
Peter J. Gilbert
Doctor of Philosophy
About
20
Publications
6,618
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202
Citations
Citations since 2017
Introduction
Additional affiliations
May 2018 - March 2020
July 2016 - April 2018
October 2012 - May 2016
Education
September 2010 - August 2011
September 2006 - May 2009
Publications
Publications (20)
Peatland surface motion is highly diagnostic of peatland condition. Interferometric Synthetic
Aperture Radar (InSAR) can measure this at the landscape scale but requires ground validation.This necessitates upscaling from point to areal measures (80 x 90 m) but is hampered by a lack of data regarding the spatial variability of peat surface motion ch...
Maintenance and enhancement of peatland carbon storage is a major policy objective towards meeting greenhouse gas (GHG) targets. Management interventions can influence both the storage capacity and the vulnerability of the stock to climate-change induced increases in drought frequency and severity, and incidence of wildfires. Quantification of thes...
Ponds may hold significant stocks of organic carbon in their sediments and pond creation may offer a practical application for land managers to increase carbon storage. However, ponds are overlooked in global carbon budgets. Their potential significance is suggested by the abundance of ponds throughout terrestrial biomes and their high carbon buria...
Aim: Although running waters are getting recognized as important methane sources, large‐scale geographical patterns of microorganisms controlling the net methane balance of streams are still unknown. Here we aim at describing community compositions of methanogenic and methanotrophic microorganisms at large spatial scales and at linking their abunda...
Peatland surface motion is a key property of peatland that relates to condition. However, field‐based techniques to measure surface motion are not cost‐effective over large areas and long time periods. An alternative method that can quantify peatland surface motion over large areas is interferometric synthetic aperture radar. Although field validat...
Background: Globally, streams emit significant amounts of methane, a highly potent greenhouse gas. However, little is known about the stream sediment microbial communities that control the net methane balance in these systems, and in particular about their distribution and composition at large spatial scales. This study investigated the diversity a...
The delivery of organic matter (OM) from land to freshwaters constitutes a significant flux within the global carbon cycle, with particularly high OM loading in aquatic systems draining organic carbon rich peatlands. However, the reactivity and therefore the fate of OM within the aquatic continuum is not fully understood. In this study, OM concentr...
In the UK, large areas of peatland were drained for forestry in the second half of the 20th century. Ground surface subsidence and diminishing depth (thickness) of the peat layer can indicate compaction of the peat and/or carbon loss, but there are few long-term datasets from afforested UK peatlands. Here we present an unprecedented 50-year time se...
Peatlands are a globally significant store of carbon. During the second half of the 20th century new planting techniques combined with tax incentives encouraged commercial forestry across large areas of peat bog in the UK, particularly in the Flow Country of northern Scotland. Such planting was controversial and was ultimately halted by removal of...
Large-scale studies are needed to identify the drivers of total mercury (THg) and monomethyl-mercury (MeHg) concentrations in aquatic ecosystems. Studies attempting to link dissolved organic matter (DOM) to levels of THg or MeHg are few and geographically constrained. Additionally, stream and river systems have been understudied as compared to lake...
From the 1940s to the 1980s large areas
of conifer forest were planted on Scottish
peatland. Many of these plantations are
now reaching harvesting age and critical
questions surround what should be done
with them next. This paper reviews and
summarises some key issues, outstanding
questions and ongoing research in this
area. Three key options for t...
Small ponds comprise a substantial portion of the total area of the Earth’s inland waters. They can be powerful carbon sinks or sources, potentially significant processors of organic carbon. Our understanding of their role is constrained by the absence of information regarding their CO2 fluxes (F CO2) and how these change with wet or dry phases and...
This study comprises a market-based survey to assess the arsenic (As) hazard of Cambodian rice, encompassing rice from seven Cambodian provinces, comparisons with rice imported from China, Vietnam and Thailand, and assessments of 15 rice varieties. Rice samples (n = 157) were collected from four large markets in Kandal Province and analysed for As...
Small natural ponds from Druridge Bay, Northumberland (UK), were sampled to investigate the variations in sediment organic carbon (OC) content among pond types. Sediment OC was highest in uncompacted sediments from permanent ponds with extensive natural vegetation (means ranged between 7.68 and 12.86% OC) but lower in compacted sediments (mean 3.72...
Projects
Projects (3)
Interactions between upland terrestrial carbon stores and the river ecosystems that drain them are a key part of carbon cycling globally and understanding the patterns of storage, transformation and release of carbon from different sources is of prime importance in understanding carbon budgets within aquatic ecosystems from local to global scale.
Methane is a key greenhouse gas, with fluxes through freshwater ecosystems now recognised as being highly significant in the understanding of global carbon cycles and climate change. Previous consideration of methane in carbon fluxes and budgets of river systems has largely focused on evasion from the water surface and export in dissolved form.
The incorporation of methane as a carbon source into freshwater foodwebs via methane-oxidising bacteria (MOB) has only recently been recognised as important in our understanding of carbon cycles and foodweb processes and remains poorly understood. Previous work has shown that methane-derived carbon (MDC) is a significant source of energy in lakes and lowland rivers but methane incorporation may also be significant in upland streams, particularly those draining peat ecosystems.
The overall aim of this project is to determine the characteristics and significance of methane-derived carbon to upland river foodwebs and carbon cycling in these systems, exploring the pathways of incorporation and drivers of variation. It will be based on field survey work in upland Scotland utilising stable isotope approaches to examine broad-scale variation in the contribution of MDC and more detailed analysis of pathways and flow into and through the foodweb. This will be combined with experimental work examining spatial variation in methane incorporation and bioinformatic analysis to explore the characteristics and variation in MOB communities sampled from different ecosystem components.
Empirical research to estimate above and below-ground carbon stocks on afforested and non-afforested peat bogs.
Small aquatic systems such as ponds capture a disproportionately high amount of CO2 compared to other terrestrial systems. Our aim is to establish the significance of small aquatic systems in climate change and their potential in carbon mitigation.
